Outlook Bulk Email Update: Impact on Senders & How to Adapt

Outlook Bulk Email Update: Impact on Senders & How to Adapt

Dear Marketers,

We want to bring your attention to an important upcoming change announced by Microsoft (Outlook) that will impact users sending bulk emails to Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, and other Microsoft-hosted inboxes. This update focuses on strengthening email authentication to improve inbox security and reduce spam. These measures will help reduce spoofing, phishing, and spam activity, empowering legitimate senders with stronger brand protection and better deliverability.

Microsoft's New Requirements for Bulk Senders:

Microsoft is introducing new requirements for domains sending more than 5,000 emails per day. Starting May 5th, 2025, Outlook will begin enforcing stricter email authentication standards.

Key Changes to Be Aware Of:

  • Mandatory SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Your sending domain must pass SPF authentication. Ensure your domain's DNS record accurately lists all authorized IP addresses and hosts that send emails on your behalf.

  • Mandatory DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Your emails must pass DKIM authentication. This validates the integrity and authenticity of your emails.

  • Mandatory DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Your domain must have a DMARC record in place, and alignment with either SPF or DKIM (preferably both for optimal deliverability).

Impact on Non-Compliant Senders:

  • Initial Routing to Junk: After May 5th, 2025, emails from high-volume senders that do not comply with these authentication requirements will initially be routed to the Junk folder.

  • Future Rejection: Microsoft has stated that in the future, non-compliant emails will be rejected entirely to further protect their users.

Recommendations for Zoho Campaigns Users:

As users of Zoho Campaigns, especially if you send bulk email campaigns that might exceed 5,000 emails per day to Microsoft-hosted inboxes, it's crucial to take the following steps now to ensure your email deliverability is not affected:

  • Review Your DNS Records: Audit your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for the domains you use to send emails through Zoho Campaigns. Verify that they are correctly configured and accurately reflect your sending infrastructure.

  • Ensure SPF Passes: Confirm that your SPF record includes all necessary sending sources for Zoho Campaigns.

  • Ensure DKIM is Implemented: Verify that DKIM signing is properly set up for your sending domains within Zoho Campaigns.

  • Implement DMARC: If you haven't already, implement a DMARC record in your DNS. Starting with p=none allows you to monitor your email authentication results before moving to stricter policies.

  • Configure Custom Return Path: This dedicated custom return-path address allows you to receive detailed notifications about email bounces, enabling you to analyze delivery issues and proactively manage your email lists.

  • Follow Email Hygiene Best Practices: While not strictly mandatory yet, adopting the following practices will further enhance your deliverability and sender reputation:

    • Use compliant and valid "From" and "Reply-To" addresses.

    • Include functional and easily accessible unsubscribe links.

    • Maintain clean email lists and manage bounces effectively.

    • Practice transparent mailing practices with clear subject lines and proper consent.

Next Steps for You:

  1. Prepare Now: Review and update your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records immediately.

  2. Help Resources: If you need assistance with setting up SPF, DKIM, or DMARC, refer to Zoho Campaigns's help documentation.

This update from Microsoft underscores the increasing importance of proper email authentication for ensuring reliable email delivery. By taking proactive steps now, you can safeguard your email campaigns and maintain strong deliverability to Outlook inboxes.

We will continue to monitor this situation and provide any further updates or guidance relevant to using Zoho Campaigns. Keep an eye on our community forums and announcements.

It's important to note that Zoho Campaigns will not impose restrictions on email sending; however, users are strongly encouraged to proactively implement these authentication measures on their end to maximize deliverability

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support@zohocampaigns.com or engage in the community forums.

Happy Marketing!
Zoho Campaigns

 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

      Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be
    • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

      In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's
    • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

      Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other
    • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

      In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep
    • Tip of the week 15 - Add subscription-preferences option. Drive more engagement.

      If crafting content for emails, getting creatives done, and running email campaigns is your love, then unsubscribes are the heartbreakers.  You can save your emails from being unsubscribed/trashed by adding a proper subscription-preferences option in your emails (works best at the time of signup). Giving subscribers the option to choose what they want to receive from you and decide how often (frequency of the emails) your emails should hit their inboxes will increase the reach of your campaigns manifolds. 
    • Recent Topics

    • Upcoming Changes to LinkedIn Parsing in Resume Extractor

      Starting 31 July 2025, the Zoho Recruit Resume Extractor will no longer support direct parsing of candidate data from LinkedIn profiles. Why Is This Change Needed? In accordance with LinkedIn’s platform policies, extracting profile data through browser
    • Writer very buggy and glitchy after only a few minutes of use... oh my.

      I am finding Writer to be very buggy and glitchy while using it. I've tried it in Firefox, Chrome, Safari... all Mac. Complete words get deleted on backspace (probably a feature, but disconcerting and bad design, esp. if you just want to delete a couple
    • Important! ZipRecruiter Sponsored Posting Plan Changes in Zoho Recruit

      Greetings, We’re reaching out to inform you about an important upcoming change to the ZipRecruiter Sponsored job board integration within Zoho Recruit. What’s Changing? Starting June 1, 2025, Zoho Recruit will be updated with ZipRecruiter's latest pricing
    • How can I use the API to add a drop-shipping address to a sales order for one-time use?

      I need to be able to add a drop-shipping address for one-time use to a sales order via the API. Adding every such address to the contact (customer), then feeding the shippingaddress_id into the sales order, is not an acceptable approach; we have some
    • Mass Print Attachments from Selected Records in Custom Module

      Dear Zoho CRM Team, We’d like to request a feature enhancement regarding the handling of attachments. Use Case: We have a custom module that stores invoices uploaded by our affiliates. Currently, we need to open each record individually to print these
    • how to integrate zoho bigin to wordpress website ?

      hello , i want to integrate zoho bigin to wordpress webiste , can anyone help me with the tutorial ?
    • Surely it's time Inline editing from views

      I think the first request I found for in-line editing from grids was approximately 12 years ago - that post was locked because it was suggested Zoho sheetview solved the problem. However, it's now 2024, and in-line editing from grids is just a basic expectation.
    • How to work with getFieldNames formdata functions ,Any Examples

      I don't find any example showing usage of getFieldNames. Where do i find .is there any Help documents available
    • Issue with POST request creating Calls in CRM

      Hello, I am in the middle of integrating some 3rd party Call center API with Zoho CRM and going through our logs I see some discrepencies. We sometimes get an error: {"data":[{"code":"INVALID_DATA","details":{"api_name":"Call_Duration","json_path":"$.data[0].Call_Duration"},"message":"Please
    • Session "Ask Me Anything" Zoho France - Le 26 Juin 2025 14h à 17h (en Français

      Chers Utilisateurs, Vous cherchez à mieux comprendre Zoho CRM ou Zoho Desk ? Nos experts seront disponibles pour répondre à toutes vos questions lors de notre session Ask Me Anything. Rejoignez-nous ici pour en discuter en ligne. Pendant trois heures,
    • only lastname as index(?) field in custom module

      Hello, I have a small problem. I have created a custom module. The data records are only labeled with the last names. Also in the lookup etc.... It's stupid if you have different first names with the same surname. Then I only ever see the surname. In
    • Canvas View - Print

      What is the best way to accomplish a print to PDF of the canvas view?
    • Sesión "Ask me anything" Zoho en Español - 26 de junio de 2025, de 14:00 a 17:00 (en español)

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Quieres entender mejor Zoho CRM o Zoho Desk? Nuestros expertos estarán disponibles para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra sesión "Ask me anything". Puedes comentar este artículo y durante tres horas, nuestro equipo estará
    • How to read content out of File (Excel, Zoho Sheet, CSV) and iterate through rows

      Hello, I'd like to be able to iterate through all the rows in a CSV or Excel/Zoho Sheet file to perform actions on them. How is this possible in Flow? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Sven
    • Import CSV file into Zoho CRM using Zoho Flow?

      Is there a way to automate the import of contacts from Zoho Flow to Zoho CRM? I have a csv file on a remote server that I would like to pull off and import/update on a schedule.  I know you can do it with Zapier but I would like to stay within the Zoho
    • Domain Change from apkbark.com to apkbark.io – Do I Need to Setup Zoho Mail Again?

      I recently migrated my website from the old domain https://apkbark.com to the new domain https://apkbark.io. The Zoho Mail setup was previously configured and working perfectly on the old domain. Now I would like to know: Will my Zoho Mail setup automatically
    • TDS Filing

      Is there any option for automatic 26Q and 24Q filing in Zoho books. Even Tally has this option. Why don't Zoho has this ? Is there any customisation available for this ?
    • In the Blue Print Transition requirement received it will show 8 check field in pop up if they any one of this field then only move to next stage Ist quote

      In the Blue Print Transition requirement received it will show 8 check field in pop up if they any one of this field then only move to next stage Ist quote Pls help how i fix this
    • Sorry to inform you that currently we cannot access the subform fields through writer deluge (zoho.writer.mergeAndSend).

      This is the premium support answer from zoho. It means we cannot merge and send thru deluge related records (sub forms) items... Has anybody suffered from the same ordeal ? DO you have a workaround ? If not can you vote for this feature to be added to
    • Cross module filtering is now supported in CRM

      Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: This enhancement is being released in phases. It is now available in AU, JP, and CN DCs. Help resource: Advanced filters The Cross-module filtering enhancement is now available to all CRM accounts in the following
    • Quotes

      Has anyone figured out how to automatically upload a quote that was signed via Zoho Sign and insert it directly to that leads file and push it through the pipeline to proposal signed status?
    • I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM

      I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM. How I Can achive this in Zoho CRM.
    • Importing a contact with a linked product

      Hi, I'm trying to import my contacts from an excel spreadsheet and each of those contacts have fields that relate to products. Is there a way that I can import the contact with their linked product? Some of the contacts in my spreadsheet have multiple
    • CRM - Workflow Rules to be applied and work across modules

      Hello, It seems that you can't use workflow rules in CRM to work across modules, is this correct? I need a customer account status to be changed IF there have been no new deals or new quotes in the last 6 months. I can't see this is possible? I can create
    • Auto assign account owner

      hi, i need to auto assign leads and accounts to an owner by rules. i have created all the territories i need, and all territories have their owner. but when i want to auto assign a new or an existing account to a user by the rules of territories, only
    • How do I enter phone extensions?

      How do I add a phone extension correctly so that when I dial the main number it will pause and dial the extension of the contact I want to talk to Greg
    • How do you make tabs and place certain leads in them?

      I am trying to figure out how to make a tab for my Florida contacts, California contacts and New York contacts. I make a new view named "Florida Leads" but when I click on it, ALL of my leads pop up in the same view... Is there a way to move leads into different categories? Thanks, Wayne
    • Boolean Fields in Mail Merge Displaying as Checkmarks

      I'm really liking the new mail merge functionality. It's replaced the Zoho Sign extension for us. One problem I've seen is that boolean operators (i.e. Checkbox fields) in CRM merge as "True" or "False". This looks a little ugly in my final document —
    • 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ(7/24)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 7月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 2ヶ月ぶりに、渋谷にて「リアル開催」します! ▷▷詳細はこちら:https://www.zohomeetups.com/20250724Zoho ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは? Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。 Zoho サービスで完了させたい設定やカスタマイズ、環境の整備など……各自で決めた目標達成に向け、
    • Web to lead form not working

      I am starting to use this Zoho product (3 users for free) to see if it really does what it should prior to making a purchase decision. One of the important parts of the ZOHO CRM is the ability to create a web form that auto generates a lead. We have set
    • Is this a valid email from Zoho or a scam?

      Hi, I received an email advising me to update MX records for Zoho mail. Is it legitimate? Thanks, Nelson. Dear Admin, You may know that your domain (eg, yourcompany.com) has an MX record that points to an email server configured to process email for your domain. We have noticed that some of our customers have used Zoho IP address (instead of DNS server name) in their MX records to specify the mail server. This is NOT recommended practice. Vendors will sometimes change IP addresses for number of valid
    • Updating task using excel file

      Hi, Is there a way to update existing tasks using excel file import?  Thanks
    • Search on Postcode criteria not working properly

      Hi there, I used to be able to do an advanced candidate search on 'Postcode starts with' and then enter the first two letters of the UK postcode.  So if I used CH then it would bring back candidates in CH1, CH2, CH3 etc.  This seems to have changed in the last week so that it now only brings back postcodes that exactly match CH only.  I tend to use this search criteria extensively so need a fix for it asap please.
    • Quotes vs Invoices vs Sales Orders

      We have the need to create either quotes, invoices or sales orders for services we provide to clients for our sales team to present to them.  However, we are confused in the purpose of each and which we should choose.  Could someone explain the difference in them? Also, with these, we will have setup costs for our clients and then fixed monthly costs.  For instance, we have services that are one-time services at $997 and then we have others that are monthly only ($250 per month).  In addition, we
    • Tip 14: How to iterate a set of Deluge code a specific number of times.

      Hello folks, As you might already know, recursive functions are used to perform a particular action a specific number of times. We had explained this in detail in our Tip #2. Similarly, there is another way in which you can iterate a set of Deluge code 'n' number of times. All you need to do is to create a List and use the For each index task to iterate it for a specific number of times.    Here are a few use cases where this would be useful to you:  To create 'n' number of duplicate records for
    • Is it possible to register webhooks in Zoho CRM using API?

      Hello, I am trying to register a webhook in Zoho CRM programmatically (using the API). Specifically, I want to register a webhook that is fired when new Contacts are created in the CRM. I was able to setup a webhook using the UI, by creating a rule that
    • Can't set conditional layout rule on lookup field in Zoho CRM

      Namaskaram Zoho CRM team,      Usually any fields of module except mandatory fields can be hide using conditional layout rules.  But that can't be set on lookup fields event that is not a mandatory fields.  Many users are in need of that.   Crafted with
    • Restrict Zoho One Account Notifications to Admins

      Hi Zoho One Team, I hope you're doing well. We recently noticed that end users are receiving administrative pop-ups in Zoho One, such as the DKIM configuration notice (screenshot attached). This type of notification is only relevant to administrators
    • Online Calculator

      Created a public shipping volume calculator for my website visitors to use. its pretty cool when you combine the power of zoho sheets and the web experience. I chose zoho because our users dont need to login or created acct like google doc users. this is great because ppl will accept the technology more without resistance. you can see the online calculator here: hxxp://www.dblusa.com/dbl_calculator.php peace! RSA
    • All about Users in Zoho Projects

      To form a functional team, businesses should define different types of users in their team. Businesses can be effectively managed by inviting users to various roles. And, the person who has the administration privileges can invite or add users to various roles in the project. Two types of users Before going into the steps to add users to your portal or project, let's understand the different types of users:  Portal Users - Users who work for the projects in your team.                      ~ Portal
    • Next Page